http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gsxqt4
Join us for the easiest form of campaign involvement I can think of and is the most fun! Honk and wave in Peterborough...a visibility event. Click the link above to learn more about this Saturday.
I know I've been remiss in posting here...but that's because I've been posting HERE!
http://www.obamastraws.blogpspot.com
My blog, "The Obama Minute", has been getting hundreds of hits a day and has had nearly 10,000 page views! Better still, it's not just for reading up on the latest; it suggestions quick, easy actions which can be taken for Barack NOW (letters to the editor, voting in online polls, petitions, etc.), and includes all of the pertinent links.
But I digress.
Sen. Clinton's comments today, implying that Sen. McCain would make a better president than Sen. Obama, simply cannot go unchallenged. Please read this post and then contact DNC Chair Howard Dean, as well as your local Democratic congresspeople.
http://obamastraws.blogspot.com/2008/03/disloyal-democrat.html
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Hillary%27s+word%3a+It%27s+worth+nothing&articleId=0853268a-d982-4190-81e8-740ae942f510
The op/ed talks about HRC going back on her pledge re: Michigan and Florida. She agreed not to seek the delegates' seating at the Convention, and signed a pledge to that effect (as did all other Democratic presidential candidates).
Seems she's considering changing her mind...
Please write to Howard Dean at the DNC to let him know that such disrespect for the DNC's rules, and for basic ethics, should not be tolerated:
http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contact
I've heard lots of great endorsements lately, but I think it's very hard to overestimate the importance of an endorsement from the sports world.
Thanks, Kareem!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/22/abduljabbar-to-magic-ob_n_82707.html
Four of the students from the high school where I teach, High Mowing School in Wilton (none of whom will be eligible to vote this time 'round, unfortunately!) accompanied me to the honk-n-wave rush hour visibility event in Peterborough tonight. It was so gratifying to see these high school students so happily and energetically involved in the process.
A nearly ceaseless chorus of car horns accompanied our 90-minute stay at the Route 101/202 intersection. The people were really visibly and audibly FIRED UP for Barack! We had 10+ folks at the intersection until it got too dark to see Barack's royal blue signs (I LOVE that shade of blue --- now, more than ever!). Our sign collection was, as usual, mixed: homemade and professionally printed.
HRC's campaign had three supporters, all with printed, non-homemade signs only. They were marginalized to the edge of the intersection...they didn't seem to dare to even think about approaching us, as we had all four corners of the junction!
We even got a few truckers (normally pretty reticent with the appreciation) to sound their air horns for Barack as they barreled on through. AWESOME!!!
CNN/WMUR: OBAMA LEADS HILLARY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 39%-29%
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/06/nh.poll/index.html
USA TODAY/GALLUP: OBAMA LEADS HILLARY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 41%-28%
(Sunday, January 6, 2008)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-01-06-poll-newhampshire_N.htm
I had a great time working at the Pre-Primary event with Roy Swonger and friends (most affiliated with the Manchester Obama office) yesterday morning at the Merrimack Transfer Station.
I enjoyed hours of interesting conversation with the 10 or so folks that were there over the course of the six-hour event. Roy and his wife Trish kept us fueled with cookies, donuts, and hot chocolate, and fortunately the temperatures were much more moderate than they have been...high 20s, low 30s.
The good people of Merrimack (and LOTS of their dogs!!!) were a little more muted in their support for Obama than what I've been seeing on the streets in Peterborough, but the percentage of those expressing their support (politely --- lots of waves and thumbs up, fewer honks) was extremely high...I'd say 50-60%. Further, those who obviously were NOT Obama fans were also very civilized about it.
A wonderful day, made possible by the energy and initiative of Roy and his family! Thank you all so much for a great day of visibility for Obama.
I received a disturbing piece of mail from Hillary's campaign yesterday. It said that Obama's record on choice was in doubt, since he'd merely voted "present" when several measures regarding choice came up in the Illinois senate.
As choice is one of the issues I follow most closely, this mailing hit me in the gut. Of course it's not true, I thought; Barack has an excellent record on choice and top ratings from the issue groups around choice. I set it aside and sat down to watch the debates.
When I went in to phonebank this afternoon, I was informed by Matt Reimer, Peterborough headquarters chief, that the Obama campaign was well aware of the mailing. The truth is that the choice measures had indeed come up in the Illinois senate, but not on their own. Rather, they were riders on much larger bills --- bills which had a lot of damaging components (on completely separate, non-choice issues) which Obama could not support. Hence, Obama (and many, many other Illionois state senators who support choice) voted "present", as a way of protesting the obfuscation in the presentation of the choice measures.
Expect a lot more misinformation from Hillary's campaign in the coming days. She wasn't expecting to have to use NH as her "firewall" state, but after her Iowa loss, the stakes are all too high for her. Be on guard, everyone!!!
For the first time this campaign season (and only on the heels of her stinging Iowa defeat), Hillary supporters are flooding the state this week.
For the first time out of the five visibility events I've done, we had company on the streets of Peterborough at our "visibility" (honk'n'wave) events on friday 1/4/08. Still, it was interesting to see our group of 6 of 7 animated, energetic, multi-generational supporters out there in the 2-degree weather at 7 am on Friday morning, while her two supporters grimly held their signs and sipped coffee. Our local supporters were joined by Greg, a young law student from New Jersey who'd come up for the long weekend to do whatever he could for Obama, from sign-waving to canvassing. More interesting still were the details about our signs: ours were largely hand-made, with a few printed Obama signs mixed in. HRC's were tall, with 3 or 4 printed HRC signs, and no personal touch whatsoever. It's a seemingly small, yet important, difference in style and effect.
Driving through Peterborough today on my way home from phonebanking, I stopped for a coffee at a convenience store. A 15-passenger van of Hillary supporters, with a sign emblazoned "ARKANSAS TRAVELLERS", was parked at the store. Inside, an HRC supporter saw my Obama button and just stared at me like I had three heads and had just dropped in from Mars. I smiled and said hello --- and got no response. I'm sorry, folks, but *you* seem to be the ones from another planet!
To sum up, the HRC campaign is showing some mighty force here in NH, but like Hillary herself, they can be a little tone-deaf to the facts on the ground in our local communities. The Peterborough office has been up, running, and actively engaging the community since way back in the summer of '07. The HRC folks have largely parachuted in at the last second, having done little else to this point other than mailings and TV ads, hoping to win by sheer show of force.
I hope that the good people of my home state of NH have the sense to do what Iowa did, and reject this kind of politics out of hand. It's time to turn the page.
(please pass on to all those in New Hampshire)
10 THINGS YOU CAN DO FOR BARACK OBAMA IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS: 1.) THE BURMA SHAVE IDEA: CREATE SETS OF SIGNS WITH SHORT PIECES OF A LARGER MESSAGE(for example, sign 1 would say "Your polling place is", sign 2 would say "just within range,please go and",sign 3 would say "Vote for Barack and", sign 4 would say "Bring this country a change!" and sign 5 would be a large Obama '08 sign...you can then get a large number of volunteers to stand 75-100 feet apart from each other leading up to the polling places(making sure the last one is at least 100 feet away from the polling place itself)..this plan can be effective! pASS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS IN nh.
2.) You can blanket businesses and see if you can put up signs and even pass out small flyers that say: "Don't forget to watch the clock, and Don't forget to vote for Barack!!" 3,) Call all friends and family and co-workers and close neighbors that you know in New Hampshire and encourage them to vote for Barack! Offer to give them rides to the polls! 4.) Now that you have done step 3, encourage these same people to repeat the process with their group of friends, family, co-workers and close neighbors! 5.) See if you can create an Obama chain with as many people as possible and stand with arms outstretched and holding hands with both supporters on either side of you and hold signs for visibility! 6.) Hold a "Honk and Wave" event near busy roads, streets,and intersections and hold up signs and wave for visibility! 7.) Take part in last minute phone banking! 8.) If there is a plan in your area to have Obama pollwatchers in place to see who amongst our supporters have not voted yet, please help with going to homes of voters and place reminder stickers on their doors to Get Out and Vote! 9.) Get on the Internet and blog for Barack! 10.) If you believe in the power of prayer, PRAY for this change to take place!
I am planning to give at least 40 hours of my time to help Barack win Missouri on February 5th, but I am just a member of the working poor and I have work and family commitments and I am unable to come to New Hampshire...so that is why I am writing to you and asking for all of you to fight to bring a second victory into the Obama column! You are now the BARACK STARS OF THE SHOW!! We cannot afford to have another 4 more years of war in Iraq and skyrocketing healthcare costs and bickering in Washington! Let's move out of the Twilight Zone!!
Take care and let's BA-RACK AMERICA!!Kurt Neumann
...who needs enemies?
Jesse Jackson, Jr. is an Obama supporter, and he certainly meant well, but on the night of the Iowa victory, he said this to the Washington Post:
"The natural reminder here is O.J. [Simpson]—how does an African-American candidate attack a white woman?"
Would somebody please get this guy a minder of some sort?
See the rest of the Slate article here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2181356/nav/tap3/
A friend of mine who's a professor of linguistics informs me that in Hungarian, "Barack" means "peach"!
How cool is that?
(Distribute to your contactsx all over New Hampshire)
Obama Wins Iowa: Why Everyone Has a Reason to Celebrate TonightEven if your candidate didn't win tonight, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, farm-fed, Midwestern, and 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.Because tonight voters decided that they didn't want to look back. They wanted to look into the future -- as if a country exhausted by the last seven years wanted to recapture its youth.Bush's re-election in 2004 was a monument to the power of fear and fear-mongering. Be Very Afraid was Bush/Cheney's Plans A through Z. The only card in the Rove-dealt deck. And it worked. America, its vision distorted by the mushroom clouds conjured by Bush and Cheney, made a collective sprint to the bomb shelters in our minds, our lizard brains responding to fear rather than hope. And the Clintons -- their Hillary-as-incumbent-strategy sputtering -- followed the Bush blueprint in Iowa and played the fear card again and again and again. Be afraid of Obama, they warned us. Be afraid of something new, something different. He might meet with our enemies. His middle name is Hussein. He went to a madrassa school. A vote for him would be like rolling the dice, the former president said on Charlie Rose.And the people of Iowa heard him, and chose to roll the dice.Obama's win might not have legs. Hope could give way to fear once again. But, for tonight at least, it holds a mirror up to the face of America, and we can look at ourselves with pride. This is the kind of country America was meant to be, even if you are for Clinton or Edwards -- or even Huckabee or Giuliani.It's the kind of country we've always imagined ourselves being -- even if in the last seven years we fell horribly short: a young country, an optimistic country, a forward-looking country, a country not afraid to take risks or to dream big.Bill Clinton has privately told friends that if Hillary didn't win, it would be because of the two weeks that followed her shaky performance in the Philadelphia debate.But it wasn't those two weeks. Indeed, if we were to pinpoint one decisive moment, it would be Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose, arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff up about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda.So voters in Iowa remembered the past and decided that they didn't want to go back. They wanted to move ahead. Even if that meant rolling the dice. Again, this moment may not last. But, for tonight, I am going to savor it -- and cross my fingers that it may stand as the day that fear as a winning political tactic died. Killed by an "unlikely" candidate -- as Obama called himself again and again -- who seized the moment, and reminded America of its youth and the optimism it longs to recapture.
The issues: that is, national issues which affect us all. Not Obama's kindergarten papers; not Obama's rumored transient youthful transgressions; not even what constitutes "experience" (both you and Obama have some. I think he's got more experience and better experience, but)...ISSUES, please.
Otherwise, you're going to keep getting burned by your own stance and your own handlers:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/17/navarrette/index.html#cnnSTCText
Please learn the lesson your husband should have learned in the 90s...he never should have answered the "boxers or briefs?" question (it was far beneath the dignity of the office), but he did anyway, unfortunately. A few years later, when asked about goings on it the Oval Office after hours, he should have said "That has no bearing on my job performance", or even "That's between my wife, me, and my God (if any), and is none of your business". Instead, he lied (one of my only disappointments in him). In so doing, he set in motion the idea that it's OK to get sidetracked on topics which have nothing to do with ISSUES. When I hear my president speak, I want to hear "what I need to know", as Obama says, about the ISSUES, not hear something that sounds like it's straight out of US Magazine.
Please email to all your contacts.
Click on or copy and paste to your address bar the link below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqoFwZUp5vc
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-davis/obama-on-track-to-win-cau_b_79308.html
Interesting to hear that candidates like Richardson, Kucinich, and Biden are suggesting, overtly or otherwise, to their supporters that if their support in a given precinct doesn't hit the make-or-break threshhold of 15%, they should throw their support behind Obama.
It's not extra surprising to me. I was invited by a friend to hear Kucinich speak in her home two weeks ago. When I told her I was an Obama supporter, she said "Oh yes! You GO, Elise!".
"civility"
"politeness"
"manners"
These aren't words I've heard much from politicians during my lifetime. Barack uses them all here in this new speech from Iowa (recorded 1/2/08).
Back in February of 2007, I was undecided about this race (not that my indecision lasted long, but...!). Watching this video on YouTube tonight sparked a memory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ1KiP5-YWg
I was undecided and wanted to be open-minded towards Hillary Clinton, but as a voice coach for years, working with high school students on singing, speech, and acting, I literally could not listen to HRC's voice. I know that people from the mid-west tend to have a nasal tone, but hers is extreme. So, in the spirit of openness and helpfulness, I wrote the following email to her campaign, entitled "A Plea for Hillary and Her People from an Independent NH Voter":
~~~~~
I'm not sold on Hillary for president, although my mind is open, at this point. I am a music teacher and have taught voice and drama for years.I do, however, have a plea for Hillary and her team:Please, PLEASE get Hillary some elocution/speech/voice lessons. Obviously, her debate skills and vocabulary are excellent, but her notoriously nasal production is beyond grating. When she is speaking in a relaxed manner, it's not too bad, but as she gets more upset about an issue, she pushes her voice more and more through her nose. It's downright unpleasant to listen to.Women candidates have enough to work against, given the sexist dinosaurs who like to call them "shrill", without Hillary speaking in an abrasive, yet thoroughly avoidable, manner. It takes a lot away from her often solid viewpoints.Until she gets some lessons, please suggest to her that she yawn (or think about yawning, which usually produces a yawn, *drop her jaw*, keep her head tall, think about keeping more space between her back teeth (i.e., again, DROP HER JAW!) and relax her throat. If she feels the her throat starting to tense up and close down, that is the moment when she will begin to push her speech through her nose. If she speaks in a manner which keeps this issue in her consciousness, she could kick this bad habit for good. A little bit of work with a good voice coach would make all the difference.
Sincerely,
An undecided NH voter
I wrote to her campaign in the spirit of helpfulness. I never heard back from her campaign, even with a form letter, saying "your thoughts have been noted".
I did, however, receive appeals for money. Even though I'd gotten divorced, changed my name, and moved three times since Bill was in office (I am Bill Clinton voter twice over), she'd tracked me and has been sending me fundraising letters.
"A Conversation with the American People", my @$$!!! Hillary's perfect; why would she ever need to work on a thing?
There are so many reasons why I am supporting Obama...but his lack of arrogance (particularly after the eight years we've just suffered through) is a biggie. You lost me, Hillary!
With thanks to Anne, here is a great music video (short film, really, at 6+ minutes) which is a real tribute to Barack and his strikingly diverse heritage.
Please pass it on!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPwbozpIzM
